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A plea on principle to Americans who happen to have voted Republican:
I believe that a presidential candidate who legitimately won the electoral college should be the President of the United States, even if that winner were not my preferred candidate. I also believe that all presidential candidates should avoid unnecessarily stoking distrust and resentment among Americans over the outcome of an election, even if the candidate stoking such divisiveness were my preferred candidate. I consider calling an election “fraudulent” or “stolen,” as opposed to saying that there are potential irregularities to investigate (if plausible), to be stoking unnecessary divisiveness when all reasonable accounts of facts indicate that the election outcome has been projected legitimately and accurately.
Applied to the current situation, I would want for Trump to be re-elected President of the United States even though I voted for Biden if Trump had legitimately won the electoral college. As it turns out, however, all reasonable projections of the election indicate that Biden is the legitimate winner of the electoral college. All media that have projected elections in modern history, including Fox News, every court to review Trump’s allegations, and Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security, have stated that the election projection in Biden’s favor, two weeks after the election, is reliably accurate. I thus happen to be in the fortunate position, this election, that the person who should be President—the candidate who legitimately won the electoral college—is my preferred candidate, Joe Biden.
As to unnecessary—and dangerous—divisiveness, Trump is stoking resentment, anger and violence by insisting, without serious evidence, that the election was stolen. It would be one thing if he said there are plausible irregularities that he just wants investigated while the transition to a Biden administration is initiated, subject to being cancelled if the irregularities reveal that in fact Trump won the electoral college. However, not only are there not plausible irregularities that could change the election outcome, but Trump is declaring, before his own litigation has substantiated his allegations, if they could, that the election was a fraud.
My concerns include, of course, the short term threat to our national security, response to the pandemic, and plans for economic recovery that comes from Trump’s unwillingness to coordinate with the in-coming Biden Administration. But the concern that most animates this plea is the long-term democratic and social stability of our country. Physical skirmishes have already broken out between Trump supporters, who are told by their President that the election was stolen, and Biden supporters, who for reasons stated above have good reason to believe that the election projection in Biden’s favor is legitimate, accurate and too large to be overturned by any conceivable facts discovered from further litigation. Both sides are thus being given reason to be angry and those who believe that the President of the United States is telling the truth deserve understanding. The problem is that Trump’s claims of a stolen election, after two weeks of intensive review, have no basis. Trump is therefore inciting resentment and anger for no good reason other than his unwillingness to uphold the value of accepting electoral defeat graciously and peacefully.
Unless Trump stops encouraging false assumptions about fraud in the election, tension will likely continue to escalate. If Trump were not already on his way out of office, his inflaming of deep-seeded distrust, resentment and potential violence without cause would be grounds to reject his re-election, if not potential grounds to initiate impeachment. Moreover, the unwillingness of most Republican leaders in Congress to openly support an election outcome for Biden that is no less certain than prior elections for Trump and other Presidents makes them complicit in the (potentially literal) flames and blood to come.
I urge you, my fellow Americans, especially those who voted for President Trump, to contact the Trump administration and your members of Congress to ask that Trump concede the election, as Hilary Clinton did despite her electoral college loss to Trump equaling Trump’s loss to Biden and despite that she then, unlike Trump now, won the popular vote. Please ask your elected leaders to put America first.
Kim Forde-Mazrui
Mortimer M. Caplin Professor of Law
University of Virginia School of Law
kfm@law.virginia.edu
The foregoing views represent my views alone and do not purport to represent any official position of the University of Virginia.